Thus far have we abridged the memoir usually prefixed to the doctor's sermons. The following more discriminating critique on these once celebrated discourses is, we think, from the vigorous pen of the author of Essays on Decision of Character.'

"We have been reading again," says the reviewer, "some of the most noted of those performances. And they possess some obvious merits of which no reader can be insensible. The first is, perhaps, that they are not too long. It is not impertinent to specify this first, because we can put it to the consciences of our readers, whether, in opening a volume of sermons, their first point of inspection relative to any one which they are inclined to choose for its text or title, is not to ascertain the length. The next recommendation of the doctor's sermons is a very suitable, though scarcely ever striking, introduction, which leads directly to the business, and opens into a very plain and lucid distribution of the subject. Another is a correct and perspicuous language; and it is to be added, that the ideas are almost always strictly pertinent to the subject. This, however, forms but a very small part of the applause which was bestowed on these sermons during the transient day of their fame. They were then considered by many as examples of true eloquence; a distinction never perhaps attributed, in any other instance, to performances marked by such palpable deficiencies and faults.

"In the first place, with respect to the language, though the selection of words is proper enough, the arrangement of them in the sentence is often in the utmost degree stiff and artificial. It is hardly possible to depart further from any resemblance to what is called a living or spoken style, which is the proper diction at all events for popular addresses, if not for all the departments of prose composition. Instead of the thought throwing itself into words, by a free, instantaneous, and almost unconscious action, and passing off in that easy form, it is pretty apparent there was a good deal of handicraft employed in getting ready proper cases and trusses, of various but carefully measured lengths and figures, to put the thoughts into, as they came out, in very slow succession, each of them cooled and stiffened to numbness in waiting so long to be dressed. Take, for example, such sentences as these: 'Great has been the corruption of the world in every age. Sufficient ground there is for the complaints made by serious observers, at all times, of abounding iniquity and folly.' For rarely, or never, is old age contemned, unless when, by vice or folly, it renders itself contemptible.' Vain, nay, often dangerous, were youthful enterprises, if not conducted by aged prudence.' If, dead to these calls, you already languish in slothful inaction,' &c. Smiling very often is the aspect, and smooth are the words of those who inwardly are the most ready to think evil of others.' Exempt, on the one hand, from the dark jealousy of a suspicious mind, it is no less removed, on the other, from that easy credulity which,' &c. 'Formidable, I admit, this may justly render it to them who have no inward fund,' &c. Though such employments of fancy come not under the same description with those which are plainly criminal, yet wholly unblameable they seldom are.' 'With less external majesty it was attended, but is, on that account, the more wonderful, that under an appearance so simple, such great events were covered.' There is also a perpetual recurrence of a

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form of the sentence, which might be occasionally graceful, or tolerable, when very sparingly adopted, but is extremely unpleasing when it comes often; we mean that construction in which the quality or condition of the agent or subject, is expressed first, and the agent or subject itself is put to bring up the latter clause. For instance, 'Pampered by continual indulgence, all our passions will become mutinous and headstrong.' 'Practised in the ways of men, they are apt to be suspicious of design and fraud,' &c. 'Injured or oppressed by the world, he looks up to a Judge who will vindicate his cause.'

"In the second place, there is no texture in the composition. The sentences appear often like a series of little independent propositions, each satisfied with its own distinct meaning, and capable of being placed in a different part of the train, without injury to any mutual connection, or ultimate purpose, of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the subject generally, without specifically relating to one another. They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, but have no mutual attraction among themselves. The mind must often dismiss entirely the idea in one sentence, in order to proceed to that in the next; instead of feeling that the second, though distinct, yet necessarily retains the first still in mind, and partly derives its force from it; and that they both contribute, in connection with several more sentences, to form a grand complex scheme of thought, each of them producing a far greater effect, as a part of the combination, than it would have done as a little thought, standing alone. The consequence of this defect is, that the emphasis of the sentiment and the crisis or conclusion of the argument comes no where; since it cannot be in any single insulated thought, and there is not mutual dependence and co-operation enough to produce any combined result. Nothing is proved, nothing is enforced, nothing is taught, by a mere accumulation of self-evident propositions, most of which are necessarily trite, and some of which, when they are so many, must be trivial. With a few exceptions, this appears to us to be the character of these sermons. The sermon, perhaps, most deserving to be excepted, is that On the Importance of Religious Knowledge to Mankind,' which exhibits a respectable degree of concatenation of thought and deduction of argument. It would seem as if Dr Blair had been a little aware of this defect, as there is an occasional appearance of remedial contrivance; he has sometimes inserted the logical signs for and since, when the connection or dependence is really so very slight or unimportant that they might nearly as well be left

out.

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'If, in the next place, we were to remark on the figures introduced in the course of these sermons, we presume we should have every reader's concurrence that they are, for the most part, singularly trite; so much so, that the volumes might be taken, more properly than any other modern book that we know, as comprising the whole commonplaces of imagery. A considerable portion of the produce of imagination was deemed an indispensable ingredient of eloquence, and the quota was therefore to be had in any way and of any kind. But the guilt of plagiarism was effectually avoided, by taking a portion of what society had long agreed to consider as made common and free to all that want and choose. When occasionally there occurs a simile or metaphor of the writer's own production, it is adjusted with an artificial

nicety bearing a little resemblance to the labour and finish we sometimes see bestowed on the tricking out of an only child. It should, at the same time, be allowed, that the consistency of the figures, whether common or unusual, is in general accurately preserved. The reader will be taught, however, not to reckon on this as a certainty. We have just opened on the following sentence: Death is the gate which, at the same time that it closes on this world, opens into eternity.' (Sermon on Death.) We cannot comprehend the construction and movement of such a gate, unless it is like that which we sometimes see in place of a stile, playing loose in a space between two posts; and we can hardly think so humble an object could be in the author's mind, while thinking of the passage to another world.

"With respect to the general power of thinking displayed in these sermons, we apprehend that discerning readers are coming fast toward an uniformity of opinion. They will all cheerfully agree that the author carries good sense along with him wherever he goes; that he keeps his subjects distinct; that he never wanders from the one in hand; that he presents concisely very many important lessons of sound morality; and that in doing this he displays an uncommon knowledge of the more obvious qualities of human nature. He is never trifling or fantastic; every page is sober, and pertinent to the subject; and resolute labour has prevented him from ever falling in a mortifying degree below the level of his best style of performance. He is seldom below a respectable mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he very rarely rises above it. After reading five or six sermons we become assured that we most perfectly see the whole compass and reach of his powers, and that, if there were twenty volumes, we might read on through the whole without ever coming to a bold conception, or a profound investigation, or a burst of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in the train of thought a succession of eminences and depressions, rising towards sublimity, and descending into familiarity. There are no peculiarly striking short passages, where the mind wishes to stop awhile, to indulge its delight, if it were not irresistibly carried forward by the rapidity of the thought. There are none of those happy reflections back on a thought just departing which seem to give it a second and a stronger significance, in addition to that which it had most obviously presented. Though the mind does not proceed with any eagerness to what is to come, it is seldom inclined to revert to what is gone by; and any contrivance in the composition to tempt it to look back with lingering partiality to the receding ideas, is forborne by the writer; quite judiciously, for the temptation would fail.

"A reflective reader will perceive his mind fixed in a wonderful sameness of feeling throughout a whole volume; it is hardly relieved a moment, by surprise, delight, or labour, and at length becomes very tiresome; perhaps a little analogous to the sensations of a Hindoo while fulfilling his vow, to remain in one certain posture for a month. A sedate formality of manner is invariably kept up through a thousand pages, without the smallest danger of ever luxuriating into a beautiful irregularity. We never find ourselves in the midst of any thing that reminds us of nature, except by that orderly stiffness which she forswears, or of freedom, except by being compelled to go in the measured paces of a dull procession. If we manfully persist in reading on,

we at length feel a torpor invading our faculties, we become apprehensive that some wizard is about turning us into stones, and we can break the spell only by shutting the book. Having shut the book, we feel that we have acquired no definable addition to our ideas; we have little more than the consciousness of having passed along through a very regular series of sentences and unexceptionable propositions; much in the same manner as perhaps, at another hour of the same day, we have the consciousness or remembrance of having just passed along by a very regular painted palisade, no one bar of which particularly fixed our attention, and the whole of which we shall soon forget that we have

ever seen.

"The last fault that we shall allege, is some defect on the ground of religion; not a deficiency of general seriousness, nor an infrequency of reference to the most solemn subjects, nor an omission of stating sometimes, in explicit terms, the leading principles of the theory of the Christian redemption. But we repeatedly find cause to complain that, in other parts of the sermon, he appears to forget these statements, and advances propositions which, unless the reader shall combine with them modifications which the author has not suggested, must contradict those principles. On occasions, he clearly deduces, from the death and atonement of Christ, the hopes of futurity, and consolations against the fear of death; and then, at other times, he seems most cautious to avoid this grand topic when adverting to the approach of death, and the feelings of that season; and seems to rest all the consolations on the review of a virtuous life."

James Macknight, D.D.

BORN A. D. 1721.-DIED A. D. 1800.

THIS distinguished Biblical critic was born on the 17th of September, 1721. His father was minister of Irvine, in Ayrshire. He received his theological education at Glasgow and Leyden, and became minister of the parish of May bole in 1753. In 1756 he published a Harmony of the Gospels,' which was very favourably received; and soon after a work entitled 'The Truth of the Gospel History,' which still further advanced his reputation as a theologian.

In 1769 he was translated to the parochial charge of Jedburgh, and, in 1772, to one of the Edinburgh charges. From the period of his settlement in Edinburgh, he addressed himself with unremitting assiduity to the preparation of his last and most important work, on the Apostolical Epistles, which was first published in 1795, in 4 vols. 4to. This is a truly valuable work. It is Arminian in sentiment, but is replete with able and accurate criticism.

Dr Macknight died on the 13th day of January, 1800.

Alexander Geddes, D.D.

BORN A. D. 1737. DIED A. D. 1802.

DR GEDDES was born at Arradowl, in the county of Banff, Septem. ber 4th, 1737, O. S. His father was the second of four brothers, respectable but not opulent farmers, all of whom still adhered to the ancient religion of the district. His first schoolmistress was a Mrs Sellar, whose notice of him, he was accustomed to say, was the earliest mental pleasure he remembered to have felt. He was next put under the care of Mr Shearer, a young man from Aberdeen, whom the laird had engaged to educate his two sons, and with whom the subject of this memoir, and the late Roman Catholic Bishop Geddes, of Edinburgh, were admitted to take lessons. He was afterwards removed to Sealan, an obscure Roman Catholic seminary in the Highlands, at which those young persons were brought up who had been devoted to the priesthood, and who were destined to finish their studies at some foreign university. At this seminary, we have reason to believe, young Geddes laid the foundation of that superior skill in the learned languages for which he was afterwards so eminently distinguished. In October, 1758, he was sent from Sealan to the Scotch college in Paris, where he arrived about the end of December, after having narrowly escaped shipwreck in his passage. Mr Gordon was then principal of the college. In a few days after his arrival he began to attend the lectures in the college of Navarre, and entered immediately into rhetoric. He soon got at the head of the class, although there were two veterans in it. Vicaire was then professor, and contracted a friendship for him which lasted all his life.

At the beginning of next schoolyear, he should have entered on a course of philosophy; but was persuaded to study philosophy at home at intervals, and to enter in divinity. He attended the lectures of M. M. Buré and De Saurent at the college of Navarre, and L'advocat, for Hebrew, at the Sorbonne. L'advocat was particularly attentive to him, and wished much to have him remain at Paris: but other counsels prevailed, and he returned to Scotland in the year 1764. On his arrival at Edinburgh, he was sent to Dundee, to officiate amongst the Catholics in the county of Angus. But he did not remain long in that station; being removed in May, 1765, to Traquaire, where he resided nearly three years as domestic chaplain to the earl of Traquaire. Of this connection he was always accustomed to speak with satisfaction and gratitude, as having afforded him much leisure for literary pursuits, and the use of a well furnished library admirably adapted to assist him in his favourite studies.

He left Traquaire in the autumn of 1768; and, after a few weeks' stay in Angus, returned to Paris, where he remained the following winter, during which he was mostly in the king's and other libraries, making extracts from rare books, particularly Hebrew ones. In the spring of 1769, he returned to Britain; and undertook the charge of a considerable Roman Catholic congregation at Auchinhabrig in Banffshire; where, in the summer of 1770 he projected and built a new